Plasticized polyvinylchloride as a temporary dressing for burns.

Plasticized polyvinylchloride film has been used in this burns unit for a long time for dressings before the ward round, before surgery, and when the burned patient is transferred from the casualty department to the burns unit. Plasticized polyvinylchloride film is easy to use, safe, and causes no pain. Most importantly, in the present financial climate, it is cheap.     

Human amniotic membrane: a versatile wound dressing.

Human amniotic membrane proved to be a versatile and useful temporary biologic dressing in studies involving 120 patients. Wounds, both traumatic and nontraumatic in origin, responded to a protocol that allowed coverage of tissues as diverse as exposed bowel, pleura, pericardium, blood vessels, tendon, nerve and bone. Wounds unresponsive to usual therapeutic measures responded to membrane application. Ease of availability, negligible cost and facilitated wound healing make this temporary biologic dressing generally superior to either cadaver skin allograft or pigskin xenograft. Human amniotic membrane dressings are therefore a useful adjunct in the care of the complicated wound.     

Propeller-twisted adenine.thymine and guanine.cytosine base pairs tend to buckle and stagger in opposite directions.

Base pairs are propeller-twisted, buckled and staggered in DNA fragment crystals. These deformations were analyzed with isolated Watson-Crick base pairs using empirical potentials and buckle was found to almost linearly correlate with propeller. Interestingly, the thymine.adenine pair favours negative buckling for propellers mostly observed in DNA crystals while positive buckling is preferred by the cytosine.guanine pair. The propeller also induces opposite staggers in the adenine.thymine and guanine.cytosine base pairs.     

Design and performance of a modified buckle transducer for the measurement of ligament tension

The basic features of a modified buckle transducer for the direct in-situ measurement of tension in ligamentous or tendonous tissues are described. The slender shape of the modified design allows measurement in ligaments located in confined spaces with reduced risk of physical interference between the transducer and adjacent bony structures. In addition, simultaneous measurements in different fiber groups of the same ligament are made convenient. The design procedure of the proposed transducer and its performance characteristics are described.     

Silicone foam sponge for pilonidal sinus: a new technique for dressing open granulating wounds.

A silicone foam sponge has been used to replace the daily packing of deep granulating wounds with moist sterile gauze. In the treatment of pilonidal sinus use of the sponge demands less nursing time and is more comfortable for the patient than the excision and open granulation technique. Patients can usually return to work soon after operation. The method has many applications in surgery, and widespread application of the technique to the management of granulating wounds could result in considerable savings to the NHS in money and skilled nursing time.